What is sterling silver?
Posted by Leah on Dec 5, 2005
Contrary to what many people believe, sterling silver is not pure silver. Pure silver is very soft and not appropriate for some jewelry applications because of its softness. Sterling silver is 92.5% pure silver alloyed with 7.5% other metals. In the United States, an alloy that is 92.5% silver can be called sterling silver, regarless of what the other 7.5% is; however, the standard alloy is 92.5% silver and 7.5% copper.
There are several non-standard alloys of sterling silver on the market today. These alloys are formulated using metals other than copper for some or all of the 7.5% that is not silver, and are usually intended to be more tarnish resistant than the standard silver-copper alloy.
